![]() ![]() … And my summer in general somehow ended up being very Regency-themed, with me (kind of accidentally) participating in #JaneAustenJuly. Some of my favourites were Kulti (a slow-burn sports romance), Beach Read (a fun rivals-to-lovers story), as well as the political sci-fi romance Winter’s Orbit, and the Regency-inspired fantasy romance The Midnight Bargain. This was a great year for romance, too! It’s not a genre I’ve ever been super-into, but (like many people, I think), I’ve been appreciating it a lot in the last couple of years, and am definitely hoping to read more in 2022. And speaking of nostalgia, I managed to end the year on a real high point with Terciel & Elinor, a new prequel to a series that’s been one of my favourites since I was a teenager. I also did a lot of re-reading this year, and I’m pleased to say that a couple of the books I re-read, I liked even better than the first time around, those being Komarr, which I now rate among my all-time favourites, and The Edge of the Cloud, which was a burst of nostalgia that came at the perfect moment. Notably, The Stormlight Archive (which has been a very long time coming) Black Sun (which has left me on tenterhooks for the sequel) and The Tiger’s Daughter (a sapphic, Mongolian-inspired fantasy with a heavy focus on its central love story – though I’m very much looking forward to more demon-fighting in the rest of the series). □Īs for some specific book stuff, I started some excellent new fantasy series last year. Well, the world may still be crazy, but in terms of reading, 2021 ended up pretty great! I blew my Goodreads goal out of the water (though I had deliberately set it low so that I wouldn’t stress over it this year) with 98 books read, and so many of them were fantastic! □ I finally got around to starting a bookstagram account in April, and I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going so far… and if I do say so myself, my 2021 My Year in Books page is looking pretty neat. I perhaps wouldn’t recommend it as a starting point to the series, but if you like The Old Kingdom, you’ll like this, and if you don’t like The Old Kingdom, you clearly haven’t read it yet, and should definitely get on that. ![]() In fact, I blew through this in just two days, which is something that’s only happened a few times in the last few years… □ The writing, as expected, is excellent I was quickly drawn into the story, and it held on tight the whole way through. Perhaps because of the greater focus on romance, I found myself mentally comparing it a lot to Goldenhand – but plot-wise, I think that Terciel & Elinor is a lot stronger, and it probably has my favourite storyline of the more recent books. □ Many of their interactions were a little awkward, as they’re both fairly naïve, but it was incredibly endearing to see them growing closer. I was also surprised by how much I liked the romance in this given that I’m used to thinking of Terciel and Elinor as just “Sabriel’s parents” (and Terciel in the original trilogy was such a distant, formal-seeming character, more often referred to by his title than his name), I wasn’t expecting to ship them so hard. In particular, I found Elinor’s perspective a lot of fun her unusual upbringing combining with her natural good sense and stubborn resolve makes her journey continuously entertaining. ![]() This is always such a wonderful world to revisit, and Terciel & Elinor has all the eerie vibes I’ve come to expect – along with a heavy dose of cuteness in the form of it’s two new protagonists, who I quickly grew very attached to. ![]() The Old Kingdom has been one of my favourite series for a long time now, and although I don’t feel like the more recent books quite live up to the awesomeness of the original trilogy (and nostalgia has certainly played a part in my enjoyment of them), I’ve still really loved them all. Terciel & Elinor is the sixth book in the Old Kingdom series, which began with Sabriel in 1995, and serves as a prequel to that book. Meanwhile across the Wall, Abhorsen-in-Waiting Terciel trains to take on a role he feels he’ll never be ready for, and can only hope that he and his master together will be strong enough to finally lay to rest the Greater Dead creature that’s haunted their family for generations. When an ill wind blows from the North, the magic of the Old Kingdom arrives with it, completely upending Elinor’s idyllic but isolated life. ![]()
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